Help us prevent financial abuse and gendered poverty
This tax time, WIRE is seeking to raise $17,520 for our Financial Guidance Clinic. The one-on-one guidance people receive from the clinic helps people with understand their financial situation and prevent financial abuse.
The Clinic helped approximately 100 women, trans and gender diverse people last year. Through the generous funds raised from this winter appeal we hope to expand the clinic and run it every month.
Krystel’s story
Krystel, who received life-changing help through WIRE’s Financial Guidance Clinic. Krystel came to WIRE deeply concerned about her finances and the future.
She’d started a cleaning business with her husband a few years back. It seemed the perfect way to earn money while her son was in kinder. She did the cleaning and managed the customers; he did the finances. They ‘played to their strengths’.
Soon she began to feel things weren’t right.
Her husband gave Krystel a couple of hundred dollars a week and said the rest would be reinvested in the business.
He bought new clothes and went out for dinners. He said it was a tax right off, so it didn’t really cost them anything. When she asked for help with food and essentials, he told her they couldn’t afford it. It didn’t make sense: how could she be working so hard but barely have enough to make ends meet?
Krystel made the brave decision to leave. She wanted to keep the business she’d worked so hard on. Her husband said she couldn’t afford to buy him out. He told her she couldn’t run a business anyway; she didn’t even know how to lodge a tax return!
Doubt crept in – could she do this by herself? Maybe she should have stayed if she couldn’t afford to look after her son?
By chance, Krystel saw a flyer for WIRE’s Financial Guidance Clinic. Our expert volunteers looked at Krystel’s finances and talked her through her options.
They had found a way Krystel could hold on to the business and one day she might even be able to buy a small unit for herself and her son.
How your support can help
We are looking to raise $17,520. If we can get this far, we can run the clinic every month.
$50 helps us recruit more volunteers for the Clinic.
$80 provides an initial financial assessment.
$250 enables one person to do our Money Mindset Financial Education program.
An extremely generous $1,460 will fund one Clinic, reaching 10 women and gender diverse people.
Please visit DONATE to help support the Clinic.